Deputy Prime Minister Hong Nam-ki, center, closes his eyes during a ministerial meeting over Japan's export restrictions at the Government Complex in Seoul, Thursday. From left are Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha, Hong and Industry Minister Sung Yun-mo. Yonhap

By Nam Hyun-wooThe government delayed its decision Thursday as to whether to remove Japan from its "whitelist" of preferred trade partners, indicating that Seoul is willing to work with Tokyo to prevent the trade row from escalating.The unexpected decision came a week after Deputy Prime Minister Hong Nam-ki said Korea would remove Japan from its whitelist of countries receiving preferential trade status, as a countermeasure against Japan's decision last Friday to remove Korea from its own exports whitelist.According to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, ministers and other ranking government officials had a meeting to decide on changing Korea's export control rules, "but agreed to postpone the plan."Initially, the government planned to announce a detailed process on excluding Japan from its whitelist on Thursday. According to the process, Japan would be removed from Seoul's 28-country whitelist and placed into a new category. For that, Korea was supposed to require its exporters to require approval for each transaction of strategic items ― mirroring Japan's planned move to delist Korea. Seoul suspended its decision after Japan on Wednesday promulgated a revision to its export control law to announce it has removed Korea from its whitelist, but did not specify in its enforcement rules for the revised law which items would require individual permission. As Tokyo did not specify items, individual permission is required for the export of none of the items, except for three materials for making semiconductors which were placed under Japan's first round of restrictions on July 4. Another factor that apparently affected Seoul's suspension is Japan's permission for a single shipment of one of the restricted semiconductor materials to Korea on Wednesday. The shipment of photoresist for extreme ultraviolet (EUV) chip making technology was the first of its kind since July 4. Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon also lowered the level of his rhetoric over Japan during a meeting with ministers, stressing "diplomatic efforts" rather than economic countermeasures. Analysts said the government decided to suspend delisting Japan because it lacks justification. To delist Korea, Japan has come up with a reason that its export restrictions are necessary for its own national security and management of its exports, though the country's export restrictions are widely seen as retaliation to the South Korean Supreme Court rulings last year's calling for Japanese firms to compensate surviving South Korean victims of wartime forced labor."Removing Japan from Korea's whitelist without proper reason may end up bringing adverse effects in Seoul's bid to file a complaint with the WTO over Tokyo's export restrictions," a Seoul-based lawyer said. "Exchanging tit-for-tat measures is not necessarily helpful."